In May, I returned from several days in
Cuba where I had three hours alone with Fidel Castro. I opened by saying
to him that I envied his having run a revolution, that is, of being able
to shape a whole country. I then asked him what that revolution means to
him. He quickly responded by saying that it has enabled him to provide every
Cuban with an education, resulting in a sky high literacy rate, and with
full medical care in other words, substantive benefits.

Yet when interested and involved Americans are asked
what they seek for Cuba the response is invariably in terms of "reform,"
which, when translated, means a market system and capitalism. Democracy
is always thrown in, but almost as the afterthought. If one stops to think
about it, Castro's response was indeed in terms of social substance, that
is, of how the Cuban people would benefit - a reflection of values - while
our response is more in terms of mechanisms.

Granted that these mechanisms are supposed to result
in the same good things that Castro touts, the results have nonetheless
hardly reflected well for the market economies of the West, especially
in terms of those two sets of social goods that Castro has clearly provided
and to which pro-Castro types always allude.

In Los Angeles at this very moment, for example, the
County Hospital (one of the largest and best such teaching hospitals in
the country) is closing its doors. Bail outs apparently are only for financial
institutions, not ones providing social goods.

By coincidence, I returned to Los Angeles from Cuba to
attend a three day Council on Foreign Relations conference.

One major question had to do with to what extent even
a superpower should intrude in the affairs of other nations. One good
point made was that in terms of trying to effectuate change elsewhere
toward "our" direction, that is according to our myths and rhetoric,
we, as the world's richest nation, had best become paragons ourselves.
We are hardly positioned to offer education and medical care as examples
of our successes. Granted, those two successes barely respond to the other
sins so often bandied about, especially in Miami.

Politics and ideology aside, I found Castro far more
impressive than I had anticipated. He is very knowledgeable and surprisingly
sophisticated about the world. For example, having heard that I was an
economist, he wanted to discuss the meaning and importance of the falling
dollar. He then asked about the now defunct Bretton Woods Agreement and
the fixed exchange regime before 1973. That then got him into the question
of whether the world should return to that system. After all, he pointed
out, there were almost three decades of vigorous and stable economic activity
with fixed exchange rates as the mode. Once flexible exchange rates took
over so too did chaos.

One now senses a shifting attitude in Washington toward
Castro. The Cuban government is aware of this, but most cautious about
becoming optimistic.

At the same time, there is a liberalizing of economic
and political attitudes within Cuba. Human rights activists have been
released, dissidents have felt unthreatened enough to talk openly in Havana
with the press and with the likes of former Costa Rican President Oscar
Arias. Now foreign investment is welcome and wanted. Evidence of free
market activity is even coming into view. Small privately owned firms
can hire non-family members. More counter to the ideology, even unemployment
is allowed. Farmer's markets based on prices are all over the place now.

Regardless, the question remains as to whether Castro
himself fully appreciates what has to be done if the market can be put
to good use. Certainly his economic ministers are thinking that way. One
hopes that he too is honing his understanding of the enormity of such
a shift, if indeed he sets out to accomplish it.

Perhaps most surprising to me, given the repression so
often alluded to, was the experience of freely walking the streets with
Ricardo Alarcon, President of the National Assembly (and sometimes referred
to as next in line to Castro himself), without any bodyguards in sight.

All of this points to the obvious question: Since the
historical reasons for the US embargo have disappeared, why is there still
a Berlin Wall of the Americas between that country and this one?